1. Field of Invention
Federal Regulators and Consumer Advocates are requesting higher performance in rollover, side, and frontal impacts. Their objectives are to increase buckling strength to 2.5 times vehicle weights to maintain the integrity of the passenger door apertures and passenger compartment during higher speed impacts.
The present invention relates to the manufacture of automotive impact and structural components. More, particularly, the invention discloses a front pillar structure of a vehicle adapted to reinforce the front pillar through stiffening or by way of a device for increasing the strength of a hollow shaped front pillar, which has a closed cross-section.
Typically, the automotive engineer strives to increase the strength of the roof rails, pillars, and bows while attaching this structure to a stiff foundation (e.g. frame or uni-body components). Traditional solutions usually included adding multiple sheet metal stampings of higher gage with strength, which were limited to the formability process. A tubular product always has been superior in torsional stiffness and strength; however, it could not be feasibly packaged, or attached to a non-cylindrical cavity in the vehicle, such as the pillars, which the present invention presumes to solve.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Present construction of roof rails, roof headers, rocker reinforcements, front shot-gun structure, and radiator supports, are traditionally made of several stampings comprising a portion of a structural automotive body. Recently, roof structures and radiator supports have began replacing stampings as a one-piece component made by the hydroform process.
An example of a hydro-formed space frame exhibiting a pair of laterally spaced, and longitudinally extending side rail structures is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,350, issued to Gabbianelli et al., and which also includes a pair of forward-most upright structures, each connected to a respective side rail structure, to thereby form a pair of A-pillars. A pair of roof rail structures are included, a forward end of each being connected to an upper end of an associated A-pillar, a rearward ring assembly connected at upper portions thereof with the roof rail structure and at bottom portions thereof with the side rail structures. The rearward ring assembly further includes a tubular hydroformed and inverted U-shaped upper member having a cross portion and a pair of leg portions extending downwardly from opposite ends of the cross portion, a pair of tubular hydroformed side members, and a cross structure rigidly connected in ring-forming relation between the second ends of the side members.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0088012, to Yoshida, teaches a vehicle front pillar with inner and outer frame members joined into a substantially tubular shape. A fore portion of the inner frame member is oriented toward the front of the vehicle and has at least one bent portion formed thereon so as to serve as a shock absorbing section. A rear portion of the inner frame member is oriented toward the back of the vehicle and has a reinforced member of a closed sectional structure attached thereto so as to serve as a high-rigidity section. The reinforcing member may have a circular or rectangular cross-sectional shape.
Finally, Yamamoto et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,692,065, teaches a framing structure for arrangement around a vehicle door opening produced by a hydraulically tube-formed tubular framework disposed inside the vehicle door opening to form a basic framing. An outer panel us joined to the tubular framework by welding. The inner side of the tubular framework is an inner wall within the vehicle. The outer side of the tubular framework, facing the outer panel, is a stiffening wall. The stiffening wall is hidden within a closed spaced between the outer panel and the inner wall.